Asked Dave to bring his St. Croix along so I could sling the Q&D Skagit line on it.

I had tried it on the Loop Blue 8124, and while that rod manages Skagit casts very nicely with 15' tips, it was a bit bouncy with the T-14.

Tried the St. Croix with the 10' floater + 5' T-14 and the 5' floater + 10' T-14 tip.

Match made in heaven.

While the St. Croix can't out perform the Blue in any other form of casting, it can in this one. All that's required for a successful cast (with any rod) is to get that T-14 moving smoothly. Once moving, the dense head and T-14 keeps going, even when the line speeds are on the slow side. (Think C&D.) Since the St. Croix isn't particularly muscular, it's easy to avoid over-powering the cast/line. The whole exercise has to be slow and smooth -- with the St. Croix, that's really your only choice.

The St. Croix being medium in stiffness, smoothly progressive, and not very powerful, seems ideal for the job. If you have a St. Croix 7/8 collecting dust in a closet, you gotta try this line on it.

Should mention that I hit one line-loaded cast accidentally and the results were predictably not good, with the cast dying on the way out. I swear I heard the rod wimper.